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October 28, 2020

Interview with Donald Sinclair

Donald Sinclair is a former Canadian diplomat. He served as a member of the Canadian delegation to ACRS. 

October 2, 2020

Interview with Daniel Poneman

Daniel Poneman was director of Defense Policy and Arms Control at the National Security Council. He served as a member of the US delegation to ACRS.

November 11, 2020

Interview with Sallai Meridor

Sallai Meridor is a former Israeli diplomat. He served as a member of the Israeli delegation to ACRS. 

September 13, 2020

Interview with Fred Axelgard

Fred Axelgard is a former US diplomat. He served as a member of the US delegation to ACRS.

July 1963

D.B., 'To the New Comer'

While in 1947 the Indian organizers of the First Asian Relations Conference invited a Yishuvi delegation, eight years later the Bandung Conference organizers did not invite Israel. At the same time, the second half of the 1950s signaled the start of Israel’s long “African Decade,” which would end only when many African states cut their diplomatic ties with the Jewish State after the 1973 October War. The first two countries to establish diplomatic ties with Israel were Ethiopia, in 1956, and Liberia, in 1957; in the 1960s, many others followed, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Congo, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Tanzania.

Thousands of Africans studied in Israel, as illustrated by this document, an anonymous article published in 1963 in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’ African Students journal that provides a glimpse of experiences Africans had, including racism but also feelings of superiority. Moreover, thousands of Israeli engineers, agronomists, architects, geologists and others who had participated in nation-state building in Israel worked often for years in development projects in Africa and also, though less so, in Asia and Latin America. And as Ronen Bergman’s 2007 PhD thesis “Israel and Africa: Military and Intelligence Liaisons” shows, Israel exported weaponry and Israeli officers shared with the militaries of recently decolonized African countries their expertise in warfare and in controlling civilians. After all, Israel blitzed through the Egyptian Sinai in 1956, had won its first war back in 1948-1949, and from then until 1966 kept its own Palestinian citizens under military rule.

In fact, the Israeli Defense Forces and the foreign intelligence agency Mossad were central to Israel’s involvement in Africa. The core reason for Israel’s interest in Africa was political and strategic. Israel needed allies in the United Nations, where postcolonial Asian countries were turning against it. And it wished to minimize the dangers of postcolonial Arab-African alliances and to extend to parts of Africa its “periphery doctrine” of honing relations with Middle Eastern countries that neighbor Arab states, like Iran and Turkey. As it did so, Israel at times shared some contacts and information with the US government; becoming a US asset was a boon to the Israeli government, though it remained fiercely independent-minded.

June 29, 2020

Interview and Discussion with Sir Malcolm Rifkind

Discussion with Sir Malcolm Rifkind, former Defense Secretary and Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, about the 1990s and the new relationship that formed after the Cold War.

July 25, 1990

National Intelligence Daily for Wednesday, 25 July 1990

The CIA’s National Intelligence Daily for 25 July 1990 describes the latest developments in Iraq, Kuwait, Liberia, the Soviet Union, China, Taiwan, European Community, Hungary and Germany.

October 26, 1990

National Intelligence Daily for Friday, 26 October 1990

The CIA’s National Intelligence Daily for 26 October 1990 describes the latest developments in Iran, Kuwait, the Soviet Union, Lebanon, Pakistan, New Zealand and Gulf States.

April 5, 1946

Cable from B. Smith to Secretary of State

Ambassador Smith and Stalin discuss relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, both expressing their desire to avoid a deterioration of relations in the post-war time frame.

May 21, 1980

Memorandum from Donald Gregg for Zbigniew Brzezinski, 'Up-Date on Korea'

Donald Gregg proposes that the United States "work with the current Korean leadership" but "express a carefully calibrated degree of disapproval" of the Gwangju massacre.

Pagination